running red lights
by hisgirltuesday
Summary: It doesn't have to be love —or that's what they say, anyway. AH M/F


**notes:** Not dead. This was born from writer's block no shame in this nope none at allll

**notes2:** Choppy af, abuse of italics and parentheses

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><p>.<p>

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::::: running red lights :::::

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_sometimes I wonder why_  
><em>we like to mourn over things<em>  
><em>that weren't<em>  
>(<em> because you &amp; I, we're a tragedy<em> )

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><p><em>so why did you choose to lean on a man you knew was falling ?<br>—the enemy /mumford&sons/_

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><p><em>.<em>

_._

It always ends with a hangover and the taste of last night's regrets.

Skin on skin with heated words whispered on a blissful high, two sets of legs woven together in the throes of a painfully familiar rush—she is happy for a second of infinity.

( it's more like the thousandth time in a million; she likes to think so since there's no way to forget all the times he'd slipped away like water )

It's always silent save for the rustling of scratchy sheets and lingering empty promises on the pillows. She supposes that it's better that way, when everything is said without words and the time between seconds can be used to shovel away unwanted emotion.

Her eyes stray over his shoulder to the digital clock she'd placed rather conveniently on her bookshelf. The red digital numbers signal that she has exactly five hours, before, before—

She blinks, he's in her line of vision.

His eyes seem to glow in the dim light as he draws he closer until they're face to face, not really seeing until now. Her mouth is dry and she bites her lip as the words jumble up in her throat.

But then, he reads the words ( _will you stay tonight?_ ) off her silent lips—as always—and leans down to kiss her again. His breath tickles blonde strands as he presses his mouth next to her ear—

( _and says that he'll stay, if only for the night_ )

—but he's always been a wicked liar.

Then again, it shouldn't matter because he's not worth it.

( or that's what she keeps telling herself, anyway )

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The early morning light filters through dusty blinds and her hand instinctively reaches over to the right —only to grasp cold sheets.

The familiar crack in the ceiling greets her as she blinks sleep muddled eyes and there's something like longing staged in her chest as she turns over to face the other half of the bed where reality lies in the form of rumpled gray sheets and the faintest trace of Obsession.

Her feet meets soft carpet as she misses her slippers by a foot, but she pays no heed and slips on a worn, oversized T-shirt and makes her way to the bathroom. She fingers threadbare cotton, knowing that she should've thrown it out ages ago but she's long adjusted to the fact that he will never leave her anything to remember him by and this is the only thing left— save for the broken silver chain underneath her pillow.

( she shouldn't even have it, but she thinks he knows since it used to hang from the rear view mirror in his car )

The glare of fluorescent bulbs reflected by the bathroom mirror makes her blink multiple times before she turns away to the tub. Her hands fiddle with the plain plastic knobs before her mind registers that the one she was currently fiddling with was for water that only polar bears enjoyed.

A string of curses leave her mouth as she rights her wrong, impatiently waiting until a lovely cloud of steam surfaces before she strips and sits under the spray, wanting to feel clean again.

( futile—his fleeting kisses are more like tattoos )

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She doesn't realize that she's been cleaning the same table for the past five minutes until someone touches her shoulder and she sees vibrant auburn hair out of the corner of her eyes.

Lissa asks her what's wrong because apparently she's been out of it for the whole entire freaking week and she'd better not forgotten that she'd dumped strawberries into a caramel latte yesterday.

She gives the spotless white table one last wipe and turns to the redhead, forcing a worried frown into a relaxed smile. She says that she's fine even though they both know she's lying through her teeth and there's not much to explain.

Jade greens crinkle at the corners and Lissa shakes her head, blowing out a shaky breath.

( except she tells her that she's not changing her number anytime soon so please call if she ever trips and falls and breaks her heart )

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She knocks five times on her apartment door first—she was never one to settle in the habit of searching for her keys in her bottomless messenger bag. The painted 3C on her door stares mockingly back at her as she squints through the peephole as the lights were on and the shower was not running.

Another five knocks and she sighs, reluctantly digging into her bag for her keys. Her wallet tumbles out, followed by her sunglasses tangled up in some string before she finally grasps her keyring triumphantly before bending down to pick up fallen items.

The apartment is strangely silent; there are no signs of her sister around.

( she closes and locks the door, half expecting to hear a snarky response from one of the rooms along the lines of 'No Max, I'm just a stranger who decided to chill in here; I didn't open the door because I'm not leaving my bed for you,' but it's still as silent as before )

She kicks off her shoes and heads into her cramped kitchen—consisting of a small stove, sink, microwave, and a mini fridge—and there's a hot pink Post-it where the stash of emergency Cup Noodles were stocked.

( _at dylan's. back tomorrow. love, the better twin._ )

She enjoys unlimited time in the shower before drowsiness kicks in and she quickly towels up and dries her hair.

Her room is dark as she curls up on her side, damp hair cool and clammy against warm skin. The scent of Obsession still clings to her sheets ( damn him ) and she tries to ignore that her bed suddenly seems too big.

She falls asleep with one hand under her pillow, right next to the silver chain.

( _it doesn't have to be love )_

Or that's what they used to say, anyway.

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Her phone buzzes when it's exactly five hours before daybreak.

The bright white screen makes her sleep muddled eyes squint as she peers at the number she knew backwards by heart.

_miss me ?_

The nerve of him. She tries to quell the suddenly rush of giddiness and reminds herself that he's probably with another nameless girl and that she's glad only one of them enjoys the game they've set up so long ago she's forgotten how to feel.

_no_, she texts back—

—_not now, not ever_

Her phone buzzes one last time and she doesn't know what to think when she gets a smiley face and little else in reply.

( _finally, you know what's good for you _)

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Nudge presses something into her hand before she heads to her last class on Friday. It's a scrap of paper, haphazardly folded into fours and it's wrinkled from being passed from so many hands.

She doesn't need to unfold it to know what it entails, and Nudge dangles a rhinestone encrusted key in front of her face.

Somewhere inside of her, there's a part of her that's positively aching for tomorrow to come. The rest of her, however, braces itself for the fall and crash that was going to inevitably follow.

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She stumbles out of the apartment, tipsy and starry eyed. Nudge's key is tied to her wrist and it scrapes against sensitive skin as she steadies herself against the wall.

She leans against the window in her borrowed dress, watching a group of guys huddled near the cars a few feet away. There's flashing dollar bills and white packets and she slowly sinks down to the cold concrete floor.

They walk past her when they're done; she gives them death glares if they so much look her up and down—until he's in her line of vision, of course.

He smirks tells her that she's always looked good in black.

She looks at him, taking in his forever dark clothing, freshly pressed, no wrinkles. There's an outline of a cigarette box in his black jeans and he should really hide all those white packets but that's none of her business. And that's the thing about rich boys, she thinks—they wore nice clothes to cover up their sins.

She tells him to fuck off.

Dark eyes are laughing at her now; he slides down next to her. She decides to breathe out of her mouth and she focuses on the barely suppressed music that is currently blasting from the apartment.

He slides an arm around her bare shoulders and she tells them that they're not friends and they'll never be friends, dragging out the words while her mind calls her a liar.

( to be honest, she doesn't know what they are now )

He leans in and she ignores the way warmth radiates from him. He reminds her of the past and that she couldn't just walk away and pretend that she wasn't tripping on air.

She stands up then, but he does too. Her arms are crossed and she stares him down. The winter breeze messes up his shaggy hair; he runs a hand through it before meeting her gaze.

She wants to say something else but he cuts her off with a rueful laugh.

He tells her that she's a liar and a coward and he knows she hates him because she doesn't know where he belongs in her black and white world anymore. He knows that she doesn't know if he's a friend or enemy and she hates the way she cares when she shouldn't.

She flashes him a saccharine smile to hide the fact that every single word is true. She tells him that he doesn't know her anymore but he jerks her chin up and says that if she's going to lie again might as well look him in the eyes like the coward she is.

The overwhelming urge to strangle him is right there, because how dare he? It's so fucking unfair—he's still the person who knows her best and she doesn't know who he really is anymore. Without asking, he probably remembers that she likes her coffee with two sugars, knows she never puts on lip balm because she always licks her lips. Knows that her favorite fruit is still apples because they'll spend the late summer days picking them in Iggy's backyard even though he hasn't been present for the last four years for fuck's sake.

She wants to stop with the game they're playing at. Wants to break that one rule to save her heart, to save herself. Her eyes are watery and her head pounds to the beat of her heart, breaths coming in short pants.

( thing was, she's better at building walls than burning bridges )

She shoves him back to the wall with a satisfying thud. She tells him that it's so fucking unfair that he knows her but she doesn't know him anymore and why did he stop letting her in? She very nearly breaks down and blames him, blames everyone and the world because all it took was one summer to take him away and he never came back.

( _why'd you come running back,_ he asks, _if you knew I was gone_? )

( _no_, she says, turning away as if looking at him was physically taxing, _you came back. but not to me_ )

She feels like there's no air to breathe in anymore. She is hanging off the edge of a cliff and her fingers are slipping.

She wants to let go and his name is on the tip of her tongue but she knows that it will never make it past her lips.

He meets her eyes, dark brown to glittering hazel. Something changes, then—she's aware of it with absolute clarity.

He says her name and lets her go—

( _this is the last time_ )

—because he's never been one to help her lie to herself.

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It's rushed and rough on leather seats, but it's okay—their relationship has always been built on unsaid words and mixed feelings, anyway. There's nothing overly sentimental or full of giddy feelings; only passing highs and crushing lows.

( he'd kiss her hard and fast but he'd never look her in the eyes )

She can still taste ashes and cigarette smoke on her lips as she scrambles out and makes a beeline back into the party, where Maya stumbles out with a giggling Lissa and a rambling Nudge.

He's leaning on his car, silently watching her as she helps her friends in and when she backs out of the lot without a second glance.

She's supposed to be free now, but she still feels like she's right there, besides him, back when the worst thing that could happen was falling off apple trees.

( they've both crossed a line—though she's not sure who did first )

It's then and there that she realizes that loving him is a lot like falling through air; she would fall flat on her face every single damnned time.

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She's sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor of Lissa and Nudge's shared dorm room downing shots with unprecedented vigor.

( though of course, the burn of the double shot of whiskey is nothing compared to what she felt when she was with him )

It doesn't help at all when Maya yanks the glass from her already clammy hands and straight up tells her that she's pathetic. She blinks a few times, uncomprehending, but then the full realization sinks in and there's nothing she can actually say to that.

( _Max, look at me_ )

She drops her gaze because she's scared of what she'll see.

( _he's not worth it_—)

She knows, from the surface of her skin he'd kissed when the moon was high in the sky to the marrow of her bones where she still aches for him.

(—_I know_)

Because people didn't die from heartbreak. They died from other things, like heart attacks and cancer.

( he's a little bit like both, steadily eating her out until one day it just stops and she'll find herself six feet under )

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It doesn't matter about how it begins—it'll end the same way as it's etched into stone.

She's sick and tired and what they have is a war three years in the making. Most of the time, she's angry at herself. Angry for staying, for not having a heart of stone so she could dump it into a canyon and forget about it until the day she dies.

But if she was honest with herself, the reason for coming back for more would be akin to trying to get off something once the addiction sets in. It's a slow death, she decides, wasting away and running off to somewhere and everywhere trying to forget.

They're a trainwreck to the last degree, but she decides to deal with the crash in the morning when she's cold and alone.

He ends up at her door and she lets him in, thinking that if you couldn't die of heartbreak, this was close enough.

( because when he smiles, she is wrecked. )

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><p>.<p>

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running red lights

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FIN

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><p><strong>notes: <strong>Nope writers block still here

Review?

**5/1~7/13**


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